


A Continuance

by tywinning



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Civil War, Alternate Universe - Vampire, American Civil War, F/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 04:53:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10550388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/pseuds/tywinning
Summary: Vicksburg, Mississippi. Late June, 1863.Jaime has only known he’s a vampire for a few days, but his mother is dying, and Jaime would give anything to make his father smile.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the [Game of Thrones Vampire AU ficathon on LiveJournal in 2012](http://bronson.livejournal.com/22610.html?thread=1026642#t1026642). This is also [posted on my tumblr](http://joannalannister.tumblr.com/post/27512557231/a-continuance-asoiafvampires-tywinjoanna). 

Vicksburg was no Antietam, where the blood had run in rivers, puddling on the ground until even the black Southern soil drank its fill. It was easy for Jaime to imagine the … _the creature_ – he refused to call it a man; no man could be that cold, and Jaime never saw its face – someplace far away like Antietam or Gettysburg or Shiloh. Vicksburg, on the other hand, was _home_ , even with Grant’s army outside the walls.

Maybe that’s why the creature had come for him in his bedroom three nights past. Maybe it just didn’t have any more food, like everyone else in his father’s forsaken city. Weary women stood outside the gates of their red brick mansion, begging Joanna Lannister for bread. Mother was a lady; she didn’t tell anyone she had no food for them anymore. People always looked to the Lannisters to lead them, to save them, to work miracles. Maybe the creature had looked to them too.

All Jaime knew for certain was that after the creature had drunk, it had whispered into his mind, “I would have you continue.” Not live. _Continue_.

Jaime had gotten the feeling this wasn’t done often, but he was a Lannister, one of the oldest bloodlines in the South. Please, he had screamed, louder than the crying of his empty stomach. His lips had been as paralyzed as the rest of him, though. Still, he screamed it in his head, screamed for his father, screamed for his mother, and screamed most of all for Cersei.

* * *

 His twin was the only one to notice the differences. Jaime no longer pestered Mammy for milk, or apples, or – when Mother wasn’t around, which was more often of late – the rat stew the servants devoured. He never jumped in surprise when the canons started booming again. In races down the wood-paneled hallways with Cersei, he was the quicker, when before she had always won. When Cersei bumped into a bust of their great-grandfather, he caught it before it smashed to the floor.

There were black parts too, just like with everything else. Jaime begged off going outside in the day, even though they had played horses in much hotter weather.

Cersei had insisted that he share, or she would tell Father what Mother had caught them at, and earn him a thrashing or worse.

Now, Cersei didn’t want to go outside either.

Roaming through the large house in the day, Jaime saw things he didn’t think he was supposed to see.

* * *

Peering through the keyhole to her boudoir, Jaime finally saw his mother for the first time in a week. She lay on her divan in only her silk robe, but she always did that on days when the mercury climbed high in the thermometer. Father was on his knees beside her, pleading with her, kissing her ivory wrist.

“Please, Joanna. Please eat something.”

“No. I want _my children_ to live. If my life is the price for them to have enough food in their stomachs to live through this, that is a debt I will _gladly_ pay.”

Her words chilled Jaime’s no longer beating heart.

Father put a hand to the swell of her belly. “And what of this child?” his father asked, the way he spoke when one of his plantation managers thought himself clever.”

Mother tried to raise her hand, as if to slap him, but it fell back to her side.

“Look, Joanna! Look at how weak you are.”

“No, Tywin. Look at how strong I am. Now leave me. I have no wish to see you until after the situation” – that was how Father always insisted on referring to the siege, as if by calling it a different name he could shut his eyes to it – “changes.” She closed her eyes and turned her face away.

* * *

 Jaime hid in the hall, and watched his father pass.

“How long must I wait, Joanna?” he muttered to himself, frowning. “If it weren’t for that child, I would have …” He passed out of earshot down the hall.

Jaime’s father rarely smiled. Not when Jaime won the May Day horse races, nor when Mother pronounced his sketches fine enough to be hung in the dining room, nor even when his tutor praised his progress. But sometimes, when he thought no one was watching, Father would smile at Mother.

Jaime would do anything to make his father smile. Silent as the dead, he slipped into his mother’s room. She wasn’t aware of him until he took her hand.

“Jaime. My baby.” Her words were slow as an August afternoon. “You never make anything easy for me, baby. I swear to God in Heaven, I will never manage to pass you off as a gentleman, if you can’t even knock before entering your mother’s boudoir.” There was a sorrow in her eyes he had never seen before.

“What if I could make it easy for you, Mother?” he blurted out.  
  
“Make what easy, baby?”  
  
_Dying. Continuing._  
  
Jaime didn’t speak. He climbed up beside her. She was so warm. He would miss that. _But then, I would lose that either way, wouldn’t I?_  
  
“You’re frightfully cold, baby. Everyone’s so cold lately. Let me warm you up.” She managed to wrap an arm around him. “May I tell you something, Jaime? Something important. Something not very nice.”  
  
“Yes, Mother.” He lay his head against her breast. When her stomach stopped growling, he could hear her heartbeat, steady as the Union shelling outside.  
  
“Our world is crumbling, baby.” She kissed his hair. “I fear even your father cannot live after its fall. If … if I ever can’t, I want you to tell him….” The words were a labor to her. “Tell him to retire … to our estates … in England. Tell him I wanted it.”  
  
Jaime simply nodded. Everyone said Joanna Lannister had a knack for hearing a lie.  
  
“I love you, Jaime. You and Cersei, both. I will love you even after my heart stops beating.” She closed her eyes. “A long time from now,” she hastened to add. Even he could hear that lie.

Jaime waited until his mother’s breathing was slow with sleep. He looked at her swollen belly, wondering what would happen to the baby inside her. Each breath seemed shallower, though. He couldn’t wait.  
  
He took her wrist, as his father had. The blue veins spider webbing just under her creamy skin made him feel hungry for the first time since Cersei.  
  
It was as loving as a kiss.  
  
When his mother awoke, the sorrow had fallen from her eyes. “Go to your father, Jaime,” she commanded, sitting up and drawing her robe around her. “Tell him…” she smiled. “Tell him that the situation has changed. Tell him that I will eat after all.”  
  
When Jaime conveyed her message to his father, Tywin Lannister rose from his desk, smiling. Jaime grinned back. His father squeezed his shoulder as he went out the door. "I'm proud to have you continue my line, Jaime."  
  
His father’s hand was colder than ice.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments!
> 
> I can be found on tumblr at [joannalannister.tumblr.com](http://joannalannister.tumblr.com/), and if you're interested in more content for either Lannister ship featured in this story, I run sideblogs for Jaime/Cersei and Tywin/Joanna:
> 
>   * [tywinxjoanna.tumblr.com](http://tywinxjoanna.tumblr.com/)
>   * [fuckyeahcerseiandjaime.tumblr.com](http://fuckyeahcerseiandjaime.tumblr.com/)
> 



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